


Jeeves and the Unplanned Duplication

by triedunture



Category: Jeeves & Wooster
Genre: M/M, Slash, Threesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-30
Updated: 2009-11-30
Packaged: 2017-10-04 00:59:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/triedunture/pseuds/triedunture
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Um, there's clones. And Jooster. Come on. COME ON.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

  
  
  
**Entry tags:** |   
[fic](http://triedunture.livejournal.com/tag/fic), [jeeves](http://triedunture.livejournal.com/tag/jeeves)  
  
---|---  
  
It really was a rum sitch, and nobody could convince Bertram W. Wooster differently. He stood there in the sitting room, hands propped on his willowy hips, and wagged his head.

'This sitch, Jeeves,' said the young master, 'it's rather rum.'

'Indeed sir,' his valet agreed.

'I mean to say, this is the absolute limit.'

'So it would seem,' Jeeves said.

'One finds oneself craving a stiff belt of the good brandy, forgetting the soda for the mo'. Jeeves?' Bertie sank onto the chesterfield, his fair head cradled in his hands.

'Certainly, sir.'

'Erm, Jeeves?'

Two valets turned to face him. Two equally tall, dark, fish-fed paragons of feudal spirit. Two identically dressed men in pinstripes and morning coats. Two square jaws, two sets of intelligent blue eyes, two expressions of the taxidermied amphibian variety. In short, two Jeeveses.

'Sir?' they both queried in the same concerned rumble.

'I only require one brandy.' Bertie looked between the two of them. 'For now.'

The Jeeveses, for their part, locked eyes in a silent battle of wills to determine who would fetch the drink. Bertie sighed. 'You take turns speaking; you can bally well take turns at pouring cocktails.'

Yes, yes, yes, I know: Hold on a tic, everything's jumped straight to the middle, we've missed a great chunk of exposition, etcetera, etcetera. Well, here we go. I'll bung you into the beginning.

It all started with a blighter Bertie met at the Drones. Oofy Prossor, the resident millionaire, had taken a sudden interest in becoming a patron of the sciences. He had declared to all his fellow club members that he was done with the arts. 'I don't understand any of this modern stuff,' he had complained. 'Now, science! There's a chap who might actually help another chap sometime in the future.' So Oofy had taken it upon himself to find a man of science who needed deep purses in order to embark on earth-shattering discoveries and the like.

Enter Kendall T. Giddlestone, a professor extremis of something or other from Cambridge. Oofy brought him to the Drones, ostensibly to spread the knowledge of Dr Giddlestone's studies round the place, but more probable was his desire to show off his new toy. Bertie had a certain distaste for the cove from first handshake. And Giddlestone's interest in Jeeves hadn't helped matters much.

'Mr Prossor tells me that your manservant is quite a specimen,' the bearded bean said, smacking his lips as if enjoying a fine invisible cigar.

'Yes, well. Quite.'

'I would very much like to hear his opinion on some of my experiments.' Giddlestone scribbled an address on a scrap of notepaper and handed it over to Bertie with nervous fingers. 'Do you think you could spare him for an hour or two tomorrow?'

'But Jeeves isn't a scientist. I mean to say, he's the brainiest thing on two legs in London, but I don't recall him ever mentioning even a passing interest in— I'm sorry, what did you say your field was?' Bertie scrunched his nose at the little scholar.

'Matter recombination.' Giddlestone pushed his round spectacles up the bridge of his nose. 'It's a very new area of study.'

Bertie hadn't the faintest clue what that meant, but he didn't want Jeeves to miss out on any opportunity to pal around with other men of learning, so he dutifully gave Jeeves a rundown when he returned to the flat.

'So that's the posish, Jeeves. Are you going to drop in at this laboratory whatsit?'

'I imagine not, sir,' Jeeves said as he scrubbed the silver.

'No?' Bertie asked.

'Men such as Dr Giddlestone are often on the edge of what they believe to be discovery, when it is actually madness.' Jeeves set aside a perfectly sparkling cake dish with a daintiness that belied his large, capable hands. 'I have no vested interest in the matter.'

'You mean he's a loony?'

'The possibility is not so remote, sir.'

Bertie chewed on his lip thoughtfully while rescuing a gasper from his cigarette case. 'I was only wondering,' he said finally, 'what this whole science patronage was about. I know I'm not the brightest bulb on the string of fairy lights; all this mumbo jumbo would undoubtedly go right over my melon. I only thought maybe I could do some good with my money by forking it over to someone brilliant. But if you don't think this Giddlestone is the real Tabasco . . . .'

Bertie lit his pensive cig. and regarded his man, who was seated at the kitchen table, politely awaiting the end of Bertie's thought.

'Jeeves, I want you to attend to this Giddlestone for the prescribed hour or two tomorrow,' Bertie finally declared. 'See if you can dig some names out of him. Some science coves who are actual hot stuff. I would like to get myself one.'

'Sir?'

'I want to fund some man of science. One that will come up with the goods, unlike Oofy's cove. And you have a better eye for genius, what? Will you do this thing for me, Jeeves?' Bertie fidgeted under his man's gaze; though he'd never come out and tell Jeeves in a million years, it was the hope that he might win that paragon's approval that had put the idea into his head. He knew Jeeves liked him well enough, or else he wouldn't deign to work for such a mentally negligible bird, but being merely liked wasn't enough for Bertie these days.

After a moment of sweltering under Jeeves' stuffed frog expression, Bertie was gifted with the sweetest words in the English language. 'Of course, sir.'

The rum thing was, it turned out this Giddlestone wasn't a complete fraud. Bertie saw the proof of this when he came home and suddenly found two valets reaching for his hat and stick. The Jeeveses had obviously not been aware until that moment that there had been two of them; they stared at each other with what could almost be called widened eyes. Eyebrows were definitely raised.

'What?' Bertie choked.

'What is the meaning of—?' one Jeeves began.

'I suggest you explain your—' the other started at the same time.

'What?' Bertie gasped.

'Sir,' the first said, turning to him, 'I do not know who this impostor might be, but—'

'Sir, I can prove my validity in myriad ways, and—' the second cut in.

'What!?' Bertie repeated for a third go round.

It took a few minutes for the Vaudeville act to calm down and rational discourse to take hold. The facts, as they were hashed out, were these:

Jeeves had arrived at the address that Bertie had given him and met with Dr Giddlestone. The man was alone in the laboratory that had been furnished by Oofy Prossor, and he was eager to show a 'fellow intellectual' (as he called Jeeves) his equipment. There had been, at one end of the basement room, a large machine of gleaming pipes and dials. It had hummed loudly with energetic effort, and Jeeves had politely inquired after its purpose. Giddlestone had happily led him to the thing, encouraging Jeeves to stand within the large, brightly lit chamber. Jeeves recalled a switch being thrown, and a flash of light, and then nothing.

Both Jeeveses reported their next memory as walking back to Berkeley Square. One must have arrived before the other, for the two men had gone about their chores, one tidying the bedroom, the other shining shoes in his lair, with neither of them running into each other until they heard Bertie at the door.

Then the tests began. The Jeeveses, both convinced the other was not the real Jeeves, quizzed each other on Things Only Jeeves Would Know.

'Mr Wooster takes his Darjeeling in the morning at approximately ten thirty-six,' one said with narrowed eyes.

'The bath water is favoured at 107 degrees, with precisely three teaspoons of soap bubbles,' the other sniffed.

'We have twelve city suits in our wardrobe, four travelling tweeds, four suits of black tie and two of white, not including the five suits meant for fancy dress occasions.'

'Mr Wooster's left leg is regrettably half an inch shorter than his right, resulting in the necessity for altered trousers.'

Bertie, who until now had been staring agog at this tennis match of wits, exclaimed, 'Really! Half an inch?'

The Jeeves who had scored that point nodded. 'It is not uncommon, sir. I wouldn't be alarmed.'

The other Jeeves rallied. 'You could find that information at any tailor that Mr Wooster frequents.'

'As you could find your facts with a little investigation,' the first countered.

'Look, I say, stop!' Bertie threw his hands in the air, then propped his fists on his willowy hips.

'This sitch, Jeeves,' said the young master, 'it's rather rum.'

And that's how we came to the present circs., with the Wooster seated on the chesterfield, fielding a tall brandy and eyeing two Jeeveses.

'There must be _something_ that only Jeeves would know. Not something about me or this valeting business, something, I mean to say, personal. Known only to Jeeves himself,' Bertie said, then sipped his drink. The two valets stared at each other.

'Any ideas, my good men?' Bertie needled.

'If you would step into the kitchen,' one Jeeves said to the other with only a modicum of eye contact, 'we might write down such a thing in secret before exchanging our statements.'

'Yes, I believe that might be prudent,' he agreed, and together they glided from the room.

They were only gone for a moment; Bertie wasn't even close to gulping down the last of his drink when the pair materialised into the sitting room once more.

'He is no impostor,' said one with a solemnity befitting a Jeeves.

'And neither is he,' said the other.

Bertie frowned. 'So you're both . . . ?'

Two twin nods.

'Precisely, sir.'

'We are both Jeeves.'

It was unclear exactly what had happened. Had Jeeves been somehow split in two equal parts? Had a perfect copy been made from the original? Only one fact remained: that the men possessed the same memories, skills, and physique. Bertie was, for obvious reasons, beside himself.

'Well,' he said. 'Well. Well. Well!'

'Indeed, si—' both Jeeveses began to say in tandem before silencing themselves and giving each other disapproving looks.

'I mean to say,' Bertie continued, 'what are we to do now?' He fiddled with a cigarette in a nervous fashion. 'One Jeeves seemed more than enough. That is—' he added hurriedly when he saw the dark looks pass over his manservants ' brows, '—I've often said you have the brains of ten men, Jeeves. It seems that the pair of you combined could run a largish country without breaking a sweat.'

The Jeeves on the left cleared his throat and glanced over at his twin as if asking tacit permission to speak for them both. At the other's nod, he said, 'Do you imply, sir, that you wish for one of us to leave your service immediately?'

'We could, if it pleased you, draw straws or use some other game of chance to decide which one should be dismissed,' the other broke in smoothly. 'That is, unless you would like to test us in some other manner?'

Bertie's heart trembled in his chest, and he looked wildly from one Jeeves to the other. 'Certainly not!' he cried. 'I have no intention of ever handing a Jeeves the mitten, regardless of how many there might be. Jeeveses, that is, not mittens.'

One Jeeves gave what nearly approached a relieved sigh. 'Thank you, sir.'

'Although that is gratifying to hear,' the one on the right piped up, 'you do not actually have a need for two valets, do you, sir?'

Bertie finally crushed out his gasper, avoiding eye contact quite deftly. 'Not as such, no. But until we get to the bottom of this bally thing, you both should stay close to the Wooster HQ, what? After all, this Giddlestone's purposes might prove nep . . . nef . . . oh, dash it, what's the baby?'

'Nefarious, sir?' two dulcet tones answered.

'Thank you, Jeeves. Nefarious.' Bertie looked up sharply. 'I say, shall I call one of you something other than Jeeves? To differentiate between the two, I mean.'

The Jeeveses looked uneasy. Both stood a little straighter.

'I would request to keep my usual appellation, sir,' said one.

'I, too, would be disinclined to answer to anything other than my normal title, sir.'

'So no "Jeeves" for one and, I don't know, your Christian name for the other? What _is_ your Christian name anyway, Jeeves?' Bertie asked as he smoked.

'Nothing suitable, sir.'

'Right-ho. "Jeeves" it is for the both of you, then,' Bertie declared.

Bertie still went to his club, of course, and one Jeeves at a time was allowed to venture from the flat on errands, but none had been able to find any clues; Oofy Prossor had been notably absent from the Drones and inquiring after Dr Giddlestone at the laboratory came up with nothing. (The man was, apparently, gone from the city.) So the three of them soldiered onward. A new routine that involved double the amount of Jeeves was not smooth sailing. In those first few days, Bertie would wake to find two cups of tea sitting on his nightstand, with one valet opening the curtains and the other laying out the day's suit.

'Jeeves, erm, I hate to be overly critical, but I really only need one cup of the morning's sweet nectar at a time,' Bertie finally said as he tried to judge which teacup he should pick (impossible, as they were both perfect).

The Jeeveses looked at each other with not a little glint of competition in the baby blues.

'Perhaps you could take turns?' Bertie suggested. 'Maybe one of you could take the day off while the other is hard at work, what?'

They bristled at this quite visibly.

'The thought of working a mere three or four days a week is not a pleasant one for me, sir,' said one.

The other nodded. 'Idle hands, sir, are the Devil's tools.'

'What, is the chappie building a potting shed or something?' Bertie mumbled into his teacup.

'No, sir, the phrase means—'

'Jeeves, forget the Devil.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Cast him and all hands from your mind.'

'It is done, sir.'

'Dash it, Jeeveses, there just isn't enough work in the Wooster household to keep you both occupied!' Bertie cried as he set down his first cup of tea and began draining the second. 'I came home yesterday to find the carpets thoroughly beaten, the crown moulding repainted, and two trays of dinner waiting on the table. It's just not cricket. Soon one or both of you will find yourselves supremely bored and will give a go at being Prime Minister just to fill the hours.' Bertie sighed and finished his second cup; he rarely had two doses of the Darjeeling so early in the day, and it made him feel jittery. He considered the delicate china cup in his hands, then looked up at his twin valets. They stood side by capable side, awaiting his instructions.

'Erm, could one of you run the bath? And perhaps the other could get to work on the eggs and b.?'

'Certainly, sir.'

'Of course, sir.'

Bertie waited until both broad backs were turned before taking his teacup in hand, sticking his arm out, and dropping the cup quite deliberately on the floor, where it shattered into a million glittering pieces. The Jeeveses turned at the sound, brows knit in double concern.

'Oh dear,' Bertie said flatly. 'Would one of you mind clearing that mess?'

One Jeeves looked at the other, both with eyebrows raised to impressive heights.

'I will see to it, sir,' one murmured as he biffed off, presumably to fetch a dustpan.

This new tactic of Bertie's continued for several days. Every so often, Bertie would find himself tipping over table lamps, dropping cocktails on the carpet, and ripping holes in his shirt cuffs. All that, he thought, would be plenty to keep two Jeeveses busy.

Of course, he was mistaken.

Even with the house in a constant state of disrepair, two Jeeveses were more than enough to handle it. The lamps were swiftly glued back together with seamless precision. The stained carpet was scrubbed to gleaming within minutes. The shirts were repaired before Bertie had time to say 'what ho'.

Bertie was in the process of scuffing his shoes with some steel wool in his bedroom when the two Jeeveses floated in on silent feet. The young master hid the implement behind his back with a rather guilty smile. 'Hullo there, Jeeveses,' he said.

'Sir, while we are grateful that you have endeavoured to create enough work to satisfy the both of us,' the one on the right said, 'we would appreciate it if you used some other method. We are fast running out of cleaning solution and glue.'

Bertie sighed and handed his ruined shoes over to the Jeeves on the left, who produced a pot of polish from his trouser pocket and immediately set to work on them as he walked from the room. 'You're right, I suppose,' Bertie said to the remaining Jeeves. 'I _am_ running out of things to break, tear, drop, and ruin. We shall just have to—'

Then the doorbell rang.

Instincts ingrained deep in Jeeves' soul made him glide from the room to answer it, even as Bertie's jaw dropped open in voiceless protest. Before they could be stopped, both Jeeveses arrived in the vestibule, with the one arriving a moment sooner and opening the door to Mr Bingo Little. Bertie trailed behind just in time to see Bingo's open-mouthed shock at two twin valets reaching for his hat and stick.

'Oh dear,' Bertie muttered.

The Jeeveses seemed to realise their error too late. By then, Bingo was already exclaiming, 'Why, Bertie! You never told me Jeeves had a twin brother.'

'Oh, erm, yes. Quite.' Bertie gestured to the Jeeves nearest him. 'This is, uh, well, he's Jeeves too, obviously. Being brothers, that is. Their names would be the same, what?'

'I say!' Bingo handed his hat over to the door-answering Jeeves, his eyes still fixed on the other one. 'And you're both valets, then? That's lucky!'

'Thank you, Mr Little,' said the newly minted fraternal Jeeves.

'My brother worked for a gentleman on the continent,' the other Jeeves lied smoothly. 'Said employer has since passed away. My twin is currently visiting me on his way to Scotland, where he has procured a new position.'

'Oh, he's already found one, you mean? Too bad. Oofy would have snapped him up in an instant. He's always going on about wanting a Jeeves of his own.' Bingo ambled into the sitting room, snatching a cigarette from the silver case on the mantle as he passed. 'And to think, he might have gotten his wish quite literally. Well, he'd have to fight off any number of chaps who wanted a valet like Jeeves, myself included!'

Bertie exchanged worried glances with both his valets, and they all moved into position round young Bingo in unspoken formation.

'Has Oofy really said that? What a strange thing to mention,' Bertie said with typical caution.

'Oh, yes.' Bingo lit his cig. and flopped into a chair. 'He doesn't like to talk about it in front of you, old bean; doesn't want you getting the wrong impression. He knows no amount of money would cause Jeeves to leave your employ. Already tried that, of course.'

'Did he!?' Bertie turned to scowl at his Jeeveses, who coughed in sheepy tandem. One replied, 'On several occasions, sir. But as Mr Little has reported, to no avail.'

'Well! That's just not sporting, trying to finagle a man's man right out from under his nose!' Bertie stamped his foot. 'I'll be dashed if I'd let someone like Oofy Prossor—'

'Sir,' Jeeves cut in smoothly, 'perhaps Mr Little has some idea of what Mr Prossor has commissioned Dr Giddlestone to explore, if Mr Prossor was so given to speaking of his plans in his presence.' This was accompanied by a meaningful eyebrow.

'That Giddlestone fellow? Complete crackpot, I heard. No idea what Oofy thought he was capable of. I say, Bertie, are you free on Thursday? Rosie is hosting a bit of a dinner party; I'm meant to invite you.'

'What? Yes, of course, of course,' Bertie said, not a little distracted.

'Really, though. Two Jeeveses. Wait till Oofy hears about this!' Bingo laughed. 'He'll be absolutely blowed.'

Snapping to sudden attention, Bertie joined in with a nervous laugh of his own. 'About that, Bingo, would you mind awfully not mentioning Jeeves' brother to Oofy? It's only that, well . . . .' He trailed off and looked helplessly over at his two valets. One stepped up with great aplomb.

'Mr Wooster means to say, Mr Little, that my brother has already made plans for employment in Scotland and would not entertain an offer here in London. He is not as enamoured of city life as I, and he fears he would appear ungrateful if he were forced to turn down what would no doubt be a generous offer from Mr Prossor.'

'Oh, but the look on his face!' Bingo cried. 'It would be grand.'

'Bingo. Need I remind you,' Bertie said, 'that we were at school together?'

The Little frowned. 'Bertie, that's really rather unfair of you. It would just be—'

'I'm serious, Bingo. Not a word to Oofy. Please?'

Bingo sighed as if he were being crushed by a great weight of responsibility. 'As you wish, Bertie, seeing as we were at school together. Haven't seen Oofy in ages, anyway. Who knows where he's gone?'

After some idle chatter and a cocktail, Bingo was summarily pushed from the Wooster abode. It was then and only then that Wooster, B. was able to whirl on his doppelganger valets and I-say his head off.

'I say, Jeeveses!'

'Yes, sir.'

'Most disturbing, sir.'

'Do you think that Oofy had hired that scientific cove to, to, to make a Jeeves for himself?' Bertie staggered into the nearest armchair. A b. and s. appeared at his elbow on a small salver, and from the other side, the silver cigarette case was offered. 'Thank you for the fortifying instruments, Jeeveses,' Bertie said, availing himself of both. 'I just can't believe Oofy would do such a thing.'

'And yet it would appear to be the case, sir,' the salver-bearing Jeeves said.

'But dash it, Jeeves, you're not some sort of cheap greeting card whatsit! You're not meant to be carbon copied!' Bertie tipped back his drink in one go and then went for the cig. 'Doesn't Oofy realise that even if there were a million of you in the world, if they were truly all still you, not a single one would deign to serve a man like that?' Bertie glanced up quickly, two spots of colour rising on his cheeks. He had spoken much too passionately, and he feared the Jeeveses would notice.

The other Jeeves lit his gasper with a single regal click of the lighter, and Bertie leaned into the flame. After a few meditative puffs, he continued, 'That was probably a bit harsh on old Oofy, what? That is, one can't blame him for wanting a Jeeves of his own,' Bertie said carefully.

'No, sir. However, you are correct in your sentiments.' Jeeves replaced the special case of cigarettes on the mantle.

'I would never wish to enter Mr Prossor's employ, especially now knowing the depths to which he'd sink, if you will forgive me for saying so.' The other Jeeves spirited the empty glass and salver back to the sideboard.

'Well, if I have my way, you'll never have to. Either of you. I may not be a millionaire like Oofy, but I have enough of the folding ready. I can employ the both of you for as long as you wish to remain here.'

Both Jeeveses stopped their tasks of tidying up their respective corners of the sitting room and turned to trade looks over Bertie's head.

'Is that acceptable?' Bertie asked with not a little trepidation.

'More than acceptable, sir,' said one quietly.

'Two salaries are not really necessary—' one ventured.

Bertie waved this away. 'Tosh. You're two men, and you do the work of two men. You deserve the pay of two men. Dash it, of ten men.'

'Thank you, sir.'

'You are generous as always, sir.'

'Good. That's settled for now, then.' Bertie tapped away some ash from his pensive cig. 'I say, Jeeveses, what was the thing you two shared in the kitchen that first day? The thing that proved that you were both the real deal, I mean.'

The two valets turned on their blank mask faces. 'Nothing of importance, sir.'

'A mere trifle,' the other added.

And so they continued on, a household of three instead of two. Bertie was perfectly content, and the two Jeeveses fell into a rather smooth routine. Double cups of tea and twice the amount of dinner no longer made an appearance. The valet double act seemed more at ease as well. They appeared to be working in peaceful unison, communicating without need for words even. Bertie watched them drift about the flat shoulder-to-shoulder, using only eyebrows and light touches on a wrist or elbow to say what they meant. Bertie was glad; it wouldn't do to have not one but two Jeeveses unhappy.

It may have kept going on like this forever, except one day Bertie became trapped in the pantry.

Bertie hadn't set out to be trapped in the pantry, but it happened like this: he'd wandered into the kitchen looking for a tin of beans to act as a weight for some flowers he wanted to press between the pages of his diary (a hobby he had adopted as a child and was not wont to share with anyone, but the blossoms in the square that morning had been just topping, and, well, a gentleman could press flowers if he wanted to press flowers). He was in the pantry taking just such a tin of beans from the shelf when he heard the kitchen door swing open. Through the slightly cracked pantry door, he saw a Jeeves in his black pinstripes and shirtsleeves station himself at the sink. Jeeves started in on the dirty dishes, and Bertie suppressed a sigh. He decided to just wait until Jeeves finished and left, as he didn't relish the thought of explaining to his valet why he was lurking in the pantry with a tin of beans; he feared Jeeves would look askance at flower pressing the same way he looked askance at a flowered tie.

But then the second Jeeves entered the kitchen as well, fresh from the market and dressed in his tweed leisure suit. The two valets bid each other a good afternoon.

'Has Mr Wooster left for the day?' the tweed-clad Jeeves asked.

'I did not hear him announce his departure; he might be reading in his study,' said the pinstripes.

'Did he allow you to recommend the blue tie, or did he decide on the orange?' Bertie was sure he could detect the smallest amount of humour in that Jeeves' near-smile.

'Mr Wooster is wearing the blue, thankfully.' The other Jeeves gave an answering almost-smile and turned off the water taps, having finished with the dishes. Bertie watched from his hiding place as the half-happy look fell slowly from Jeeves' face; his hands braced against the lip of the sink; his shoulders sagging with some unseen pressure.

'Today is one of the difficult ones,' the tweed Jeeves murmured knowingly.

The other nodded.

The parcels from the market were placed on the kitchen table, and Jeeves approached his twin at the sink. Bertie nearly gasped as he saw the tweed Jeeves place a reassuring hand on the shirtsleeved Jeeves' shoulder. Jeeves, as a rule, was not given to casual touches. Bertie had once attempted to clasp his hand, and even that had been a step out of bounds. But now, with his doppelganger, Jeeves seemed to relax into the supporting palm.

'You must not weaken. We cannot afford to, especially now. You must turn to me if you need assistance,' said the tweed.

'Yes, I know. I do not believe I could have made it this far without an understanding heart on which to rely,' the shirtsleeves said softly.

'The same holds true for me.' And, to Bertie's complete shock, Jeeves leaned forward and brushed his lips against the nape of his double's neck. The Jeeves in shirtsleeves turned and pressed a kiss to the other's mouth. Their arms wound round each other, and the Jeeves in tweed coaxed the other to rest his head upon his shoulder. They stood like that for a moment, their eyes shut tight, their hands clutching desperately.

'He is so beautiful today,' whispered one.

'He is beautiful every day,' said the other. There was a small pause, and then he added, 'If he has left for his club, would you like to lay in bed with me for an hour or two?'

Bertie gave a start. Since the arrival of the pair of Jeeveses, he hadn't considered it, but it was obvious now: they shared a room and a bed. They hadn't made use of the guest room; feudal spirits prevented that. Well, Bertie thought, that was a tad strange but— Wait a mo'! Bertie's mind raced. When _he_ leaves for his club? _He_ is so beautiful? Were they talking about the young master? The idea made Bertie's head spin. He nearly dropped his tin of beans in happy shock. Jeeves! And himself! And, well, also the other Jeeves! Erm. Bertie worked his brain for a moment, trying to come to terms with it all. The hardest part was trying to equate Wooster, B. with 'beautiful'. He of the beakish nose and unruly hair and rail-thin frame was not the essence of manly beauty, as far as Bertie could see. Jeeves, on the other hand . . . .

But the Jeeveses continued conversing. 'I would enjoy that. I will have to finish the ironing first, however.'

'I finished the ironing this morning while you were cooking Mr Wooster's breakfast. Come, help me turn down the bed. You're exhausted.'

The other Jeeves nodded in what seemed like defeat. 'Thank you,' he said, 'for tending to me when I cannot seem to manage it myself.' Bertie felt a sickening falling sort of feeling in his stomach. Vis-à-vis 'who will guard the guards?' was the question 'who will take care of the man who takes care of you?' Poor Jeeves, having been run down like he was and having no one to turn to—

'You did the same for me just the other day. Now come along.' And Jeeves led his twin out of the kitchen with a tenderness that surprised Bertie: his hand on the small of the other's back, his voice a low murmur.

Ah. So Jeeves _did_ have someone to turn to. Himself.

It was a shaken Bertram indeed that emerged from the pantry a few moments later. He kept his tread silent as he pushed his way past the kitchen door and into the hallway. 'Mr Wooster must have left without alerting you,' the one Jeeves' voice floated from around the corner. 'He isn't in the study. Here, let me take your waistcoat and . . . .' And the voice trailed off as it headed in the direction of Jeeves' lair.

Bertie was not normally the sort of employer that peered through keyholes at his personal gentleman (or gentlemen, as the case may be), but he considered this a special circ. He crept down the hallway, slipping his shoes off after a few steps so that his socked feet would be quiet. The door to the Jeeveses private quarters was shut, but light shone from beneath it. Two deep voices rumbled from within, but Bertie couldn't make out any words. He pressed his eyeball to the little keyhole and saw, well, not much, to be honest. A dark shape would flit by every few seconds, one of the Jeeveses walking past, no doubt. But Bertie could at least hear them more clearly.

'Relax,' came a calm whisper.

There was the rustling of bedsheets, and Bertie could see the shape of feet moving under the covers at the foot of the bed. A small sigh escaped from the bed's occupant, and an answering hum accompanied it.

'Will you disrobe as well?'

'Certainly, you need only make a little space for me.' A short pause. 'Thank you.'

Bertie's eyes went wide, and he felt that his baby blues must be positively bursting through the keyhole. Though he could see only a bit of the bed and the floor, just knowing that two nude Jeeveses were cuddled up beside each other under the bedclothes was enough to set his imagination afire. Every creak of the bed-frame, every wordless murmur, every intake of breath, every hiss of fabric against skin sent Bertie's brain to churning. For all he knew, the two men were just taking an afternoon nap in their skivvies, but really, how could Bertie expect his mind to be content with that?

It was obvious that whatever was happening within that lair was not for public consumption, and Bertie slunk away from the door and took his hat from the stand; he needed to leg it to the Drones in actuality so that the Jeeveses would never know what he'd seen. While at the Drones, Bertie allowed the dinner roll cricket and games of card-in-the-topper to pass him by in favour of staring into space and letting his mind wander. Every so often a fellow would attempt to rouse him from his distraction, but Bertie would not be moved. After a few hours, he went home in more of a daze than ever. But his mind, at least, was made up.

He found a Jeeves there to greet him when he returned. This Jeeves wore the tails and pinstripes, but it was impossible to tell if he had been wearing that ensemble earlier or not. So Bertie accepted this Jeeves' welcome and handed over his hat.

'Jeeves,' Bertie said, 'where is the other Jeeves?'

'He is,' a short pause, 'feeling unwell, sir. He is abed. Do you wish me to fetch him, sir?'

'No, no.' Bertie chewed his lip. 'Are you feeling ill too, Jeeves?'

'No, sir. I am in fine health.'

'Ah. Good. I've never known you, either of you, to be under the weather.' Bertie looked up at his valet, his perfect stalwart. 'I worry about you, you know.'

Jeeves swallowed, his throat moving visibly as he hung Bertie's hat in its place. 'You needn't, sir.'

'But I do, Jeeves. I do need.' And, spurned onward by the images of his valets locked in a passionate embrace, Bertie stood on his tip-toes and crushed his lips to Jeeves'.

It was, in a word, absolutely topping. Wait, no, Bertie thought, that's two words. Oh, what does it matter how many words he used to describe it? A million would never be enough. Bertie unsealed his lips from Jeeves' mouth and opened his eyes slowly, as if waking from a dream. Jeeves stared back at him, his eyes dark with some unspoken emotion. His lips, Bertie noted with some satisfaction, were reddened and slightly parted as if in wonder.

Bertie could have stared at the sight all day, but another Jeevesian sight caught his eye over the broad valety shoulder. Bertie gasped as he saw the other Jeeves, standing there at the other side of the room in his dressing gown, his face drawn and pale, the pain of a broken heart clearly painted on his visage. This Jeeves' brow was drawn, his mouth twisted in a way that spoke of betrayal. There may have even been a glint of tears in his eyes; Bertie couldn't tell, as the Jeeves materialised from the spot too quickly.

'Wait, Jeeves!' Bertie raced down the hall to the open door of the servants' quarters. 'You mustn't—'

He entered the lair to find the dressing gown Jeeves already making a neat pile of shirts and socks on the mussed bed. His movements were measured and calm as he emptied half of the drawers in his dressing table.

'Jeeves, what are you doing?' Bertie cried. He sagged against the door-frame, catching himself with his hand at the last moment. 'You can't leave, I—'

'I am not needed here, sir,' Jeeves said in a low voice, 'in any capacity.'

'But,' Bertie took a step forward, only to be treated to a withering glare from Jeeves. He gulped and tried anew: 'But I do need you, Jeeves.'

Jeeves turned back to folding his socks into a neat pile, his back to Bertie. 'You must have me confused with my double,' he said with not a little bitterness. The sock he was kneading became balled up in his hands. 'The strange thing, sir,' he said quietly, 'is that you cannot even tell us apart. It might have so easily been me. If chance had been on my side.'

'Jeeves, please listen—'

Jeeves silenced him with a mere gesture, a hand held up with tired acceptance. 'The choice left to me is clear, sir. Please do not make this more difficult.'

'Reginald.' The pleading voice, the twin voice, caused Jeeves to finally turn. Bertie turned as well to find the pinstriped Jeeves standing there in the hallway. That recently kissed valet nodded sadly. 'Do not do this. I should be the one to leave.'

'No one is bally leaving!' Bertie exploded. Then, 'Wait. "Reginald"?'

The be-gowned Jeeves sighed. 'My—our—Christian name.'

'You don't look like a Reginald at all.' Bertie considered the two of them. 'Either one of you, I mean. Dash it, I'm getting off course!'

'If I may be so bold as to inquire, sir,' said the Jeeves in the morning coat, 'what is your proposed course of action?'

Bertie hesitated but a mo', and then he laced his fingers with those of that Jeeves. The other Jeeves turned away at the sight, as if it sent daggers through his heart to witness it, but Bertie tugged at his companion's hand until they approached the wronged party together. Then, slowly, Bertie laid his other hand on that Jeeves' shoulder.

'I am sorry I kissed this Jeeves without your— Presence? Permission? Knowledge? Some thingummy like that,' Bertie said. 'I never intended for you to feel like a third wheel. Jeeves, will you look at me, please?'

Jeeves turned to regard his doppelganger and his master, his stoic mask firmly in place.

Bertie blushed under the scrutiny, but soldiered on. 'It's not one or the other, old thing. It's the both of you that make the Wooster heart pound in the Wooster chest.'

Both Jeeveses were now looking at Bertie with the same expressions reserved for the more ill-advised spats in the wardrobe.

'Sir?' they both asked at the same time.

Bertie shrugged helplessly. 'Odd, I know, but it's how things are, what? That is, you're both, well, Jeeves. And it's Jeeves that I want.'

'Sir.' The previously packing Jeeves placed his socks on the bed and focused his full attention on the young master. 'I am not certain what you are proposing, but I fear you are broaching a subject which is unnatural as it is . . . .'

'Unseemly,' the other Jeeves supplied.

Bertie sputtered. 'How can it be unseemly!? Two chaps are unseemly enough for most people, so how much worse can three be?'

'Your logic, sir, isn't exactly infallible.'

'Do you imagine we would be content to share you between us, acting as your lover only every other day?'

'Every other day? Why, of course not. I don't see why we all couldn't—'

'Sir!' Both Jeeveses appeared scandalised, their eyebrows hooking high on their foreheads. Almost a full quarter inch, in fact.

'Oh, I saw you two necking in the kitchen earlier!' Bertie finally confessed. 'Don't pretend the idea is so foreign to you.'

Both valets had the courtesy to look a little sheepish at that. Both sets of dark blue eyes neatly avoided Bertie's gaze.

Bertie sighed. 'I'm not angry about it. In fact, it was quite the fruity sight. I only wish I had known sooner, so you two wouldn't have felt as alone as you must have.'

The Jeeveses exchanged a pair of those knowing glances which were becoming increasingly familiar to Bertie. Silent communication completed, the Jeeves in the dressing gown asked, 'Are you certain of your feelings, sir? Might you merely be possessed of a lustful urge?'

Bertie grinned and slipped his hand into Jeeves', so that he was now holding two square, work-roughened hands. 'I am certain,' he said, 'that Fate sent me this gift because my heart overflowed with love enough for two of you.'

It was a sentiment Bertie had been working on for some time at the Drones, and it was just the ticket. The cold Jeeves melted, the warm Jeeves warmed even more, and Bertie found himself engulfed in twin embraces, with two sets of strong arms squeezing him about his waist.

'Oh, hullo,' he murmured, his mouth muffled against a Jeevesish chest.

'We love you as well, sir,' rumbled one voice.

'We've loved you for so long,' said the other, this time vibrating against Bertie's spine.

'I know.' Bertie squirmed happily between his two valets. 'After a long round of thinking, I realised it must've been the password, what? The thing that proved your Jeevesness to each other.'

'It was. Our darkest secret, our shared pain.'

'Sir,' said the morning coated Jeeves, 'would you grant me a favour?'

Bertie shuddered at the feel of those soft lips tickling the back of his neck, and he nodded. 'Of course.'

'Would you give my double his kiss? He has desired it for some time.'

The young master looked up at that still-unkissed Jeeves before him, and the man wouldn't meet his eyes.

'Is this true, Jeeves?' Bertie meant to be playful, but the hesitant nod he received in reply told him all: this Jeeves still believed himself to be unlucky and unloved. Unable to see him suffer any further, Bertie threaded his fingers in his thick black hair and pulled him down to meet his kiss. It contained all the passion of the other Jeeves', but Bertie tempered it with gentle reassurance: a lick there, an additional nip here. The Jeeves in the morning coat, for his part, made a small noise in the back of his throat and continued to cling to Bertie, his chin hooked over a willowy shoulder, enjoying his front row seat.

'I say,' Bertie whispered when he surfaced from the liplock, 'I might just be the happiest cove in the world. I could go on kissing you two all night.' Bertie watched as the Jeeveses gave each other a look above his fair head, followed by matching near-smirks. 'What's this now?' Bertie goaded. 'Are you both plotting against me?'

Bertie knew they could be speedy; dash it, they were probably the world's fastest men. And so he was bemused to find himself bookended by two chaps whose hands appeared to be moving slower than a snail on its thorn. Oh, they caressed his flanks and stomach, those hands, but they did so slowly. Four large yet strangely delicate palms smoothing over his waistcoat, sliding under his suit jacket. Slipping up to his shirt collar, fingering the knot of his beloved blue tie.

After freeing his lips from yet another Jeevesian kiss, Bertie panted, 'I do hope you two be undressing me at some future point?'


	2. triedunture: Jeeves and the Unplanned Duplication (part two)

  
  
  
**Entry tags:** |   
[fic](http://triedunture.livejournal.com/tag/fic), [jeeves](http://triedunture.livejournal.com/tag/jeeves)  
  
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'Please, sir,' said the Jeeves that was currently nipping at his ear, 'allow us to indulge all our senses.'

The other Jeeves, who had been preoccupied with licking up the column of Bertie's throat, added, 'This encounter will only happen for the first time once. We intend to make it last.'

'Oh Lord,' Bertie said softly as two sets of capable hands clasped him: one at his chest, where clever fingertips plucked at the hardened nipples that were beneath layers of clothing, and one at the seat of his trousers, where his arse was summarily kneaded. 'Make it last as much as you can, old things, but I'll warn you I'm not certain how long I can hold out.'

And just like that, Bertie found himself spirited out of the Jeeveses' lair and into the master bedroom. It might have been teleportation, it happened so fast. Bertie blinked at his surroundings in wonder.

'There is more room here, sir,' one Jeeves explained.

'It would not do if one or all of us found themselves rolling off the bed and onto the floor in the midst of our exertions,' the other agreed, and shucked Bertie's jacket from his shoulders. The other Jeeves joined in, and before he could blink, Bertie found himself quite nude.

'What, I mean, that is to say—' Bertie licked his suddenly dry lips. 'What shall we do first?'

The Jeeveses didn't seem interested in any ideas Bertie may have had, which suited Bertie just fine. The two valets wordlessly guided their master to sit at the edge of his mattress, and they both knelt before him, their mouths level with his very, very ready erection. Bertie supported himself by leaning back on his elbows and watched the two men size him up. The one wearing the dressing gown made his move first, just a careful brush of fingertips over the straining shaft, the crisp curly hair at the base. An entirely unwanted whimper escaped Bertie's throat, and he attempted to suppress the shiver that ran through him.

'Jeeves, if I can't even withstand the lightest of touches from you, how in the world am I supposed to—?' he began.

'You will persevere, sir. I am sure of it,' the Jeeves in the morning coat said, lifting his hand to explore as well.

Unable to remain even the tiniest bit upright, Bertie flopped onto his back and clamped down on a moan. The Jeeveses touched him all over: a hand stroking his flank, rolling his sac in a palm, the pad of a thumb spreading his moisture around the head of his cock.

'Look at how he leaks,' one murmured to the other.

'His aroused state is just,' the other breathed deeply as if appreciating a great work of art, 'wondrous.' Jeeves took a bead of the fluid from the tip of Bertie's cock onto his fingertip and offered it to his twin. 'Would you like to have the first taste?'

'You're too kind.' The other Jeeves leant forward and took his double's finger into his mouth, his eyes closing in near-religious ecstasy. Bertie watched, his mouth agape.

'Is he as delicious as we dreamt?'

A lazy almost-smile in his doppelganger's direction. 'See for yourself.'

'If I may lend my own voice to that sentiment?' Bertie piped up, waving at them. 'Thanks awfully.'

Bertie then found himself the centre of two wolfish smirks, and the Jeeveses went to work in earnest. Both the Jeeves in the dressing gown and the Jeeves in the morning coat suckled at his engorged cock, one taking the head to suck, the other lapping along the shaft. And then a switch: one nuzzling his sac and the other swallowing him down. It was all Bertie could do to just remain conscious, as this dual attention was clearly about to drive him mad.

'Jeeveses,' he panted, 'this will clearly drive me mad.' He threaded his hands through two heads of black hair. 'Oh good Lord!'

The Jeeves in the dressing gown sat back on his heels and began disrobing. 'Sir, I confess I also feel an urgent need to move on to other activities before a conclusion is prematurely reached. I can only suppose my double finds himself in a similar situation?' He looked questioningly at said double, who nodded and began tearing off his morning coat.

'Wait, I say!' Bertie held up a hand. 'Once you're both unclothed, how will I—? That is to say, I won't be able to tell you apart.'

'No, sir. Does that concern you?'

'Well,' Bertie said slowly, 'I'm only worried that I might lose track and, without meaning to, lavish too much affection on one of you and leave the other wanting. Perhaps one of you can put an X on the back of your hand or something?'

The other Jeeves gave his version of a chuckle. 'Sir, I assure you none of us will be left wanting tonight.'

'My double and I are, for all intents and purposes, the same man. Do not feel uncaring if you cannot tell us apart.' A freshly naked Jeeves rose to join Bertie on the bed. 'We would rather you treated us both as Jeeves than attempt to keep us separate, for we do not feel separate, sir.' He propped his head up on a curled fist and lay on his side, allowing Bertie to take in the sight of his fit and tanned form. Bertie was convinced it was the most topping sight he'd ever seen, at least until the second Jeeves slid, just as naked and aroused, beside him as well.

'So you both feel exactly the same way about me?' Bertie asked. He breathed deeply; they both smelled so absolutely wonderful: a mixture of brilliantine and spices.

'Right down to the same fantasies,' said the one on his right, who was currently fastening his gorgeous mouth onto Bertie's neck.

'Would you like to help us fulfill those, sir?' said the one on the left. His hand moved through Bertie's fair curls, a gentle gesture.

'Is the sky blue? Are aunts awful? Of course I'd like to, Jeeves.' Bertie squirmed in pleasure between his two valets. A great deal of jolly good kissing and fondling commenced, and Bertie was feeling like the star in a very fruity stage show. All eyes and hands were on him, and it took his breath away to see how much his Jeeveses wanted him. But it was also rather nerve-wracking to lie back and allow these two pleasurable paragons to do all the work. That is to say, Bertie didn't wish to be a passive party to this whole thing.

'Which one of you will take me first?' Bertie asked as he turned to accept kisses from one, then the other. 'Will you flip a coin or something?'

'There is no need to fight over that honour, sir.' One Jeeves produced a small pot and unscrewed its lid, all while still attending to the Wooster collarbone with his tongue.

'If it is acceptable to you, sir,' the other said, 'we have previously discussed the manner in which we'd most like to give you pleasure. A hypothetical, you understand. One of us might use your mouth while the other makes love to you.'

Bertie stared at this Jeeves, his eyes only fluttering when the other Jeeves applied his slick fingers to his backside. 'C-can we do that? Erm, logical— No, linguistic— What's the word I want, Jeeves?'

'Logistically, sir?' came two roughened voices.

'Yes, I mean to say, can we do that, logistically speaking?' Bertie's spine went rigid as the very tip of one finger breached him. 'Oh, good Heavens.'

'I believe we can, sir.' The Jeeves not occupied with preparing Bertie bent to kiss him, and Bertie found the slight discomfort of the act was mitigated by this Jeeves' sweet lips. Soon the other Jeeves' finger was fully sheathed in his body and Bertie could not stop the small cries of pleasure that welled in his throat at the slow touches.

'Ah, oh, yes. More?' he breathed.

'Reginald,' one Jeeves said to the other, 'would you like to assist me?' The finger disappeared, and Bertie moued at the loss. But then both Jeeveses reached down his body; two fingers this time, one from each, moving in perfect harmony in and out. Bertie lay on his side, his legs scissored apart to make room for both hands, and shivered between his two new lovers.

'Oh God,' he gasped as he watched the Jeeves in front of him reach down to grasp his own straining member. Just a few strokes, and then Jeeves groaned with impatience.

'Stand up, sir,' whispered the Jeeves behind Bertie, and Bertie twisted his head round to give him a confused look.

'Now? Just as things are getting so lovely?'

That Jeeves retracted his hand and guided his twin's hand away as well. 'They will continue in that vein, sir, I promise. Come here.'

And before he knew it, Bertie found himself standing beside the bed with one Jeeves pressed up against him from behind. The other sat on the mattress, his fingers curling slowly round his stiff cock. 'Would you be so good as to bend yourself, sir?' said the Jeeves behind him, his voice a low rumble in his ear.

Bertie bent. He braced his hands on the bed and found himself face to face with the other Jeeves, who gifted him with a long kiss. 'Relax, sir. We have you,' he said.

Another kiss, during which Bertie felt Jeeves entering him from behind. He gave a muffled cry; Jeeves was a large chap, and everything about him seemed proportional. The pain might have been overwhelming, except the Jeeves who sat before him took his face in his hands and said, 'I love you, sir, you beautiful creature.' Bertie kissed him then and nothing hurt; within moments, he felt the lusciousness of Jeeves' sac nestling against him, and all was well.

Bertie looked over his shoulder to make sure all was well, and the sight that waited for him made his heart skip a beat. There was Jeeves, all six feet and five inches of him, tanned skin and powerful muscles, his eyes clamped shut in a portrait of self control as he stayed still within his master's body. He seemed to sense Bertie's gaze without opening his eyes, and he ground out between his clenched, perfect teeth, 'If you have obtained a sufficient amount of readiness, sir—'

'He has,' his twin answered. 'You can see on his face how he wants you.' He nipped Bertie's vulnerable earlobe. 'Tell him, sir, and he will comply.'

'You heard the man, Jeeves,' Bertie panted. 'Pound into the young master, and don't waste a second.' He playfully ground back into Jeeves' hips and was rewarded with Jeeves' fingers digging into his own.

'Certainly, sir.' Jeeves gripped him steadily and began pulling out. Bertie's back arched like a bowstring, and a Jeeves' hands skittered across his chest to toy with his nipples. Bertie blinked several times, trying to keep his head clear while one of his valets set a sharp rhythm against his backside. The sound of that Jeeves' sac striking Bertie's arse; that alone was enough to make the Wooster knees wobble.

In the midst of this, Bertie recalled that his mouth was supposed to be occupied. He pried open the baby blues and set his sights on the Jeeves before him, who was stroking him so nicely and watching every movement of his double's coupling. Bertie bent his head lower and took an experimental swipe of the tongue across that Jeeves' cock.

'Ah!' A free hand flew to the back of his tousled head and held him there. 'Please, sir, yes.'

Though he may not have been a certified genius of any sort, Bertie was no slouch when it came to pleasing the man (or men, he supposed) he loved. He took Jeeves' cockstand in his mouth and suckled. The sight of it seemed to excite the other Jeeves, who redoubled his efforts at buggering the young master thoroughly. Bertie moaned throatily at the increased speed, and Jeeves shuddered at the feeling, and the other Jeeves would be spurred on anew. It was a cycle that Bertie was quite pleased with.

'You're so, so incredibly tight,' said Jeeves. His voice was a rough thing, very unlike his normal smooth tenor. 'Sir, you are amazing. I wish you could feel him right now, Reginald. Dear Lord!'

'I will have him soon enough,' said the other, petting Bertie's fair curls. 'I only wish you could experience this clever mouth of his. It's absolutely exquisite, sir. Oh yes, just there!' He dug his fingers into Bertie's hair, and Bertie hummed in happiness.

The forceful pounding of Jeeves' hips, however, was now enough to throw him off balance. Bertie tried to remain standing on the tips of his toes, but soon all the pleasure coursing through his veins turned his legs to jelly, and he found himself quivering with the effort of remaining in his precarious position. The Jeeves behind him took hold of his arms, which had lain on the bed, and drew them back so that Bertie was kept on his feet entirely by Jeeves' own strength. Bertie whimpered at this in thanks and didn't cease sucking and licking every inch of the Jeeves in front of him.

'Bring him off,' begged that Jeeves. 'Quickly, before we both explode.'

The other Jeeves collected both of Bertie's slim wrists in one of his hands and brought the other down to his neglected arousal. 'His cock still weeps. God above, how slick he is!' His hand twisted expertly round Bertie's erection, and Bertie had to abandon his task of pleasuring the other Jeeves; he cried out helplessly, his whole body shaking with the need for release.

'That's it, Bertram, love,' said the Jeeves who was still petting his hair. 'Absolutely beautiful.'

'Please, oh, Jeeves, touch me,' Bertie whispered against his thigh, his cheek pressed against the hot skin.

By some unspoken agreement, the Jeeves behind Bertie hauled him upright and the other slid to his knees in front of their master. While the one Jeeves still rutted against him from behind, the other engulfed Bertie's cock in his mouth, just as Bertie reached his peak. His surprised shout rang off the bedroom walls, and he jerked and shuddered in the grip of both men. When the spasms had passed, Bertie opened his eyes to see the Jeeves before him wiping his mouth politely; a glance over his shoulder found the other Jeeves breathing heavily, but only stroking his sweaty back, not moving an inch.

At Bertie's slow nod, that Jeeves began moving his hips again. The other Jeeves watched from his seat on the floor for a moment, but Bertie beckoned him to sit on the bed with a tilt of his head.

'I want to taste you as well,' Bertie groaned before swallowing his prize once more.

'Sir,' gasped the Jeeves behind him, speaking in time with his thrusts, 'I am nearly—'

Bertie pulled back long enough to say, 'Come off, Jeeves. Do it, hard. The both of you.'

With that permission, hands clutched hard enough to leave bruises on Bertie's hips and shoulders. Normally soft voices rose to primal growls, and delicate speech turned to wordless noises. One Jeeves urged Bertie to suck him with a hand on the back of his svelte neck. The other Jeeves thrust into him more and more wildly, breaking his careful rhythm as his control slipped. Finally, when Bertie thought he might not be able to take any more stimulation, the Jeeves behind him stilled and, with a sharp cry, spent himself into Bertie's body. Bertie dimly noted the sensation of warm fluid dripping down the backs of his legs. Within seconds, the other Jeeves followed suit, coming off in Bertie's mouth with a long moan and a shiver.

For a long moment, all three men remained in place, trying and failing to catch their breath. Then, Bertie found himself being carefully guided to the bed, where he collapsed in a sweaty, sated heap. He was soon sandwiched between the Jeeveses, and he kissed them both, reveling in their panting chests and flushed skin.

'That was,' he said, 'the most brilliant thing I've ever experienced. You've outdone yourselves, Jeeveses.'

'Thank you, sir.'

'You're not hurt, are you, sir?'

'Good Lord, no.' Bertie waved away their concern. 'Your enthusiasm was exactly on point.' He kissed one on the tip of his regal nose and slipped his fingers into the mussed strands of the other's hair. 'I love you, old things. So very much.'

What followed was an excellent hour or so of whispered affirmations and shared touches. They lounged in Bertie's large bed, comfortably spooned against each other, too warm to even use the lightest sheet as covering. It wasn't until Bertie was tracing a fingertip down the leg of one of his valets that things went sour.

'I say, Jeeves, where did you get this?' He was referring to a long S-shaped scar that ran down the back of that Jeeves' thigh. However, it was the other Jeeves who answered, his head pillowed on his arms, completely unaware that his master was not, in fact, addressing him.

'It is from an injury I received while learning to ride as a child,' he murmured. 'I was perhaps eleven years old.'

'Oh, yes, I suppose you have one as well—' Bertie turned to look at the legs of his other valet, but he found them spotless. Pristine. That is to say, completely unscarred. 'Jeeves,' he said, 'you don't have that scar at all.'

Both Jeeveses sat up swiftly and looked at each other.

'Show me,' said the Jeeves with the scar. 'Show me your leg, Reginald.' His doppelganger complied, twisting onto his stomach to give the other a good look.

'Is he correct?' that Jeeves said in a nearly panicked voice. 'Is there no mark?'

'No,' the other said with profound sadness. 'I am sorry. You do not have the scar.'

'But, but how can that be?' Bertie asked, looking from one marble face to the other. 'What does that mean?'

The unscarred man sat up slowly, sitting at the edge of the mattress with his back to his bedmates. His shoulders slumped in utter defeat. 'It means, sir, that I am not Jeeves,' he said quietly.

'What rot are you speaking? You are both Jeeves. Tell him, Jeeves,' Bertie pleaded with his scarred specimen. But that Jeeves was silent, looking only at the crumpled bedsheets, unable to meet his eyes at all. Bertie scurried to the other's side, sitting next to him as close as he could.

'I have a memory of a scar that I do not carry,' the other man continued. 'I had thought—I had hoped—that if one of us were proven to be the original, it would be me. So strongly did I believe in my memories. So strongly did I think I was real.'

'But you _are_ real.' Bertie pinched his stalwart shoulder, and the valet flinched instinctively. 'See? You're not a figment. You're flesh and blood.'

'Yes, but not the true flesh. Not the honest blood.' He raised his head, and Bertie could see hot tears welling up in his dark blue eyes. 'I am sorry, sir. I have unwittingly deceived you.'

'Jeeves, please—'

Bertie reached out to place a reassuring hand on his shoulder, but the un-Jeeves knocked it away. 'I am not Jeeves! I never was!' And before Bertie could protest, he was out of bed and out of the room.

'Wait! Oh, dash it!' Bertie struggled to free his ankles from the twisted bedsheets. 'Jeeves, you must help me pursue your double. He's sounding rum to me, and we must soothe him.' Bertie glared at the remaining Jeeves, still sitting motionless in bed. 'Aren't you coming? You looked out for each other up till now; why wouldn't you continue to do so?'

Jeeves finally lifted his head, and Bertie saw that his eyes were red with his own tears. 'What can I say, sir, that would soothe him? Since the incident at Dr Giddlestone's, I have lived in fear of exactly this thing coming to light about myself. I do not know what I would do if I realised I was not who I believed myself to be. And I do not know how to care for him, whomever he may be.'

'Whomever he may—? Jeeves, he is _you_, old thing! Nothing less. One silly scar does not change that, in my opinion.'

'But in my—our—opinion, sir, it changes everything,' Jeeves answered.

Bertie was about to correct his normally uncorrectable manservant on this point, but he suddenly heard the front door slam shut. 'Oh, good Lord,' he muttered, and sprang from bed to grab his dressing gown. Once decent, he ran to the foyer. 'Jeeves?' he called out into the hallway, but of course the man was long gone. A quick survey of the servants' quarters found that half of the dresser drawers were now empty, and an unsigned note sat on a pillow on the small bed.

_Please do not follow me_, it read. _I love you._

Bertie collapsed in a tearful pile on the wooden floor, clutching the simple note to his chest. He was joined a minute later by Jeeves, who had wrapped a sheet round his waist; the man sat down on the floor beside his shaking master and took the note from his hands.

'He's gone,' he whispered.

'Do you even care?' Bertie spat.

Jeeves looked affronted. 'Of course, sir,' he said. 'He was my other half. I would have been lost without him.'

'Then why did he—?' Bertie choked out.

Jeeves gathered Bertie in his arms and laid his head against his chest. 'I know him as well as I know myself. And I know that I, too, would be unable to shoulder this burden.'

Bertie wiped away his tears and sniffed. 'You said you don't know what you would do, Jeeves, if you had received the same news. Are you sure of that?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Well, you're going to have to try. He's gone somewhere, Jeeves, and we must find him.'

'Is that best, sir?' Jeeves asked softly, his eyes downcast.

'If it had been you,' Bertie ground out, 'and you had fled, would you think it best to remain confused and alone in the wilds of Greater London?' Jeeves stayed silent. 'Answer me!' Bertie cried.

'I would be too ashamed to hope for you to come looking for me, sir,' he finally said.

'Well, that just proves you're both silly asses.' Bertie sighed and stood. 'Were you the one I kissed first, Jeeves? I'd like to know. It seems important.'

Jeeves swallowed. 'No, sir. I was not the one you kissed first.'

'So you were about to leave then?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Where? Where would you have gone?'

Jeeves thought for a moment before venturing, 'My sister's home. However, I cannot imagine my double will feel the same way, given the circumstances.'

'All right. Keep thinking of places where he might seek refuge, Jeeves. And remember: you were extremely close to walking out that door for no good reason too,' Bertie said. 'I meant what I said. I love the both of you, and it pains me to think—' He paused to collect himself. 'Anything might happen to him, Jeeves.'

'I know, sir.' Jeeves wrapped his master in a tight embrace. 'We will find him. This I promise you.'

 

&lt;&gt;&lt;&gt;&lt;&gt;&lt;&gt;

 

Right. Now, I know we've stuck fairly close to Bertie Wooster thus far in this story, dear reader, but we're going to have to step away from him and the real Jeeves for just a moment. I hope it doesn't give you the pip; it really is rather necessary. You see, the next part of this story follows the not-quite-Jeeves around, and, seeing as Bertie and Jeeves-Jeeves had no clue where he could be, it would be a bit of a disappointment to tell this part from their perspective. So leave Berkeley Square behind; cast it firmly from your thoughts.

We are in Regent's Park now, where the not-quite-Jeeves sat alone, swathed in his greatcoat on a small wooden bench.

It was a beautiful day. Nannies and their young charges walked the grounds, the little girls stopping to push their noses into the bunches of roses that were just blooming, the little boys whooping as they chased geese. Pairs of young lovers walked arm-in-arm round the paths, and small lapdogs trotted behind their masters and mistresses.

Not-quite-Jeeves watched this parade of humanity pass him by. And he wondered if he was even a proper member of this world. What was he, really? He examined his palms: they were rough from years of work, sensitive from a life of delicate touches to fabric and laces, lined and worn by age. They looked like real human hands. They carried the marks of his memories. So why didn't that one single scar carry over from what was certainly the original Jeeves to him, the mere copy? If only he had been a _perfect_ copy—

'Well hullo there, Mr Jeeves,' a high-pitched squeak of a voice squirmed over his shoulder.

Not-Jeeves didn't jump, exactly. He was too much a Jeeves for that. He merely glanced over his shoulder at the mouse-like form behind him, the bespectacled and bearded Dr Giddlestone. The doctor, however, had one noticeable deformity.

'Doctor, has something happened to your eye?' He turned round on his little bench to face his visitor.

Giddlestone gestured to the eye patch he wore with a careless wave. 'A small mishap. Erm, you don't recall it then, Mr Jeeves?'

'No, sir. I'm afraid I do not.' Un-Jeeves eyed the man warily. 'I seem to be having some trouble remembering all the details of our visit.'

'Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.' The little professor shook his head. 'Well, I hate to be the one to tell you this, Mr Jeeves, but I think there was a sort of accident in the laboratory the day you came to see me.'

'Indeed, doctor?'

'Yes.' The fellow pursed his thin lips. 'You _are_ Mr Jeeves, aren't you?'

Not-Jeeves' skin was now crawling in earnest. There was something predatory in those beady little eyes that sized him up like so much beef. Jeeves' clone could only think to say one thing: 'Of course I am, doctor. Who else would I be?'

There was a menacing pause, and then Professor Giddlestone doubled over in laughter. 'Quite right, my boy, quite right.' He seemed rather relieved, and un-Jeeves wondered what could possibly be the matter with the man. 'Mr Jeeves, it would be my pleasure to have you come to the laboratory once more. I think I should show you exactly what occurred.'

'Is there some danger?' almost-Jeeves asked. He was beginning to think that this man might be the only one who had the answers as to his origins, and he felt the burning need to gain that knowledge.

'No, no danger at all. Only— Well, you'll have to come with me.' Dr Giddlestone held out a small palm to what he thought was Jeeves, and the man took it.

A short walk later and not-Jeeves found himself in the laboratory, though it was not the clean and tidy basement room he vaguely remembered. One brick dividing wall had been reduced to rubble, and a thin layer of dust covered all the tools and equipment on the long tables. The false Jeeves lifted a shirt cuff to his mouth and nose as he entered the room; clouds of dust were stirred by his footsteps, and his throat tickled at the invasion.

'What's happened here?' he asked the doctor.

'Oh, we had a problem with the recombiner.' Giddlestone stepped lightly over some overturned test tubes on the floor, approaching what appeared to be the only pristine object in the room: a large machine covered with gleaming pipes and dials. Not-quite-Jeeves' eyes widened the smallest fraction; he remembered this.

'There was an explosion,' he muttered. Blurry images flashed in his mind: rising from the wreckage, being clothed in a uniform, someone just as confused and lost as he was. Himself, he had taken care of himself. No, that wasn't it. The other Jeeves had done it. As well he could, anyway, before succumbing to the blackness of sleep.

'Yes, Mr Jeeves. Quite extraordinary. I've spent the past few weeks working tirelessly to repair this machine.' Giddlestone patted the side of it fondly. 'After I recovered from my injuries, of course.'

'Doctor, please tell me: what exactly did you do to me when I was last here?'

Giddlestone tsked. 'Mr Jeeves, I think the question is: what exactly did _you_ do?'

'Pardon?'

Five quick steps, and Giddlestone was hissing in the doppelganger's face. 'What did you do with the clone!?'

The stone mask did not slip. 'I'm afraid I don't understand.'

'The twin! The double! The man who looked just like you!' The doctor was frantic, pacing the floor of the basement. 'Exactly the same except completely nude. I was knocked unconscious, but surely you remember coming face to face with your cloned self. What did you do to him?'

Still, he did not answer.

'Look,' huffed the doctor, 'no one can blame you, whatever it was you did. These clones, they're not proper people. If you were faced with something like that in your disoriented state, why, there's no shame in it. So tell me: what did you do with him?'

Not-quite-Jeeves swallowed once, then composed himself with a small cough. 'I gave him a blow to the head,' he said simply. 'He did not wake up. I remember carrying him to the canal and throwing him in. It was dark by then, and no one saw. Then I returned home.'

Giddlestone gave a pleased sigh. 'Thank you, Mr Jeeves. It is good for me to know these things. For future use.'

A regal head cocked to one side. 'You propose to attempt this experiment again in the future?'

The doctor sidled up to him, his beady eyes taking him in. 'Science, dear boy. All in the name of—' His arm struck out, as fast as a snake, and not-Jeeves felt a sharp sting in his arm. '—science.'

Not-quite-Jeeves looked down to see the hypodermic needle in his forearm. And then, understandably, everything went black.

When not-quite-Jeeves came to, he realised three things in rapid succession:

1\. He was naked and laying on a cold metal floor.  
2\. His wrists and ankles were bound with thick rope, and the knots seemed strong.  
3\. He was going to have to start thinking of himself as something other than Not Jeeves. It was really getting him nowhere except a pitiable state.

'Hullo?' a thin voice whispered from the shadows. 'Are you all right?'

Not-Jeeves squinted into the dark and saw that he was actually in a cage, big enough only for a man to lie down in, and there was a cellmate in an adjacent cage. Beyond their small cages were long tables bespeckled with various tools. It was not a part of the same laboratory that he had seen previously; perhaps a secret room or an even lower basement, then.

'Yes,' he said, his voice rough with the effects of the drug. 'I am unharmed, I believe.'

'What's your name, then?' the other man asked.

It took only a moment's thought: 'Silversmith,' the former un-Jeeves answered. His mother's maiden name was as good as any moniker, he thought. 'Who are you?'

'My friends call me Oofy.' A thin white face pressed up against the bars, and Silversmith née Jeeves recognised him as Mr Prossor himself. 'I say, I'm in the soup,' the young man declared.

Silversmith rose to his knees and growled in Prossor's direction, 'I believe that is a distinct understatement, sir.'

'Ho! What's this?' Oofy peered through the bars at the sight. 'Why, you're Bertie's man! Oh, thank the Lord, I hoped a brainy cove like you would figure all this out and come to my aid.'

'I am not Jeeves.' Silversmith struggled with his bonds, but they would not break or budge. 'I am the copy of Jeeves that _you_, Mr Prossor, had specially ordered from that madman Giddlestone.'

'Oh, no, you've got it all wrong, Jeeves,' Oofy said. 'I never—'

'I must insist you refer to me only as Silversmith, Mr Prossor.'

'Fine, as you like. You've still got it all wrong! I never asked Giddlestone to make more Jeeveses.' Oofy sagged against the bars, his own bare shoulders slumping. 'I met the blighter at a dull house party weeks ago. I was a tad sauced, you understand, and he was talking the most fanciful rot! I happened to mention how expensive science must be, and he caught on to the fact that I'm rolling in the stuff. Now, all right, I may have mentioned how topping it would be to have about 15 of certain specimens like yourself, Jeeves.'

'Silversmith,' came the correction.

'Sorry. Silversmith. It's only, I was foxed to the tonsils, and you know how people talk to pass the time at these events. Anyhow, I was about to have my last glass of bubbly, and then the lights go out on me. I woke up here, and have been here ever since. That's the honest truth, Jeev— I mean, Silversmith.'

'I am not inclined to believe you, Mr Prossor,' said Silversmith. 'Mr Wooster reported that you were in the Drones Club, introducing Giddlestone to the other members.'

'No, no, that wasn't me,' babbled Oofy. 'It was him!'

'To whom are you referring?'

'Who do you think?'

Silversmith looked up sharply. 'You mean—?'

Oofy nodded. 'It was the first thing on his list, making that blasted double of mine. Then he locked me up in here and ordered the thing to do as he bade. Silversmith, I'd never give my millions over to some crackpot like Giddlestone, but he's got no problem squeezing it from my twin, I'm sure!'

'How was he able to convince your clone to follow his commands?' Silversmith asked.

'Simple, really. He gave him a choice of being dissected for science or living the life of a millionaire. Which would you choose, old bean?' Oofy sat with his back against the bars, sighing deeply. 'Didn't matter, in the end. He killed the poor creature anyway.'

'And for what purpose does Giddlestone keep you here? Why does he need you alive?'

'Don't you see, Silversmith?' Oofy said. 'He needs the original if he wants to make more copies. I'm his endless supply of Prossors. Rum business.'

Silversmith looked round his small cage, searching for an escape with all haste.

'I say, Silversmith,' Oofy piped up, 'why is he keeping you, then? You're a copy, so what could he—?'

'The doctor is under the impression that I am the original Jeeves.' Silversmith tried to stand, but his bound feet gave him no leverage. 'I imagine he intends to use me as you have described. What happens when an attempt is made to fashion a copy from a copy?'

Oofy shivered against his cell wall. 'I've heard his stories. It's jolly unpleasant, I can tell you. Something about organs bursting.'

Silversmith resumed his efforts to free his feet. He reached down, his fingers scrabbling at the twisted rope that bound his ankles. Oofy watched with interest.

'Silversmith, why not just tell the mad doctor that you're not Jeeves? He won't need you then.'

'Exactly,' Silversmith muttered. 'He won't need me at all, and wouldn't hesitate to be rid of me permanently. And I am loath to make a deal with the devil as your clone did, Mr Prossor.'

'You mean you won't lead him to the original?'

'No.' The black-haired man shook his head. 'No, I could never do such a thing.' He looked up at his fellow prisoner. 'Mr Prossor, I need your assistance if I am to escape this situation alive. If you aid me, I promise to ensure your safety to the best of my ability.'

Oofy nodded. 'Give them here, Silversmith. I'm devilishly good at knots.'

Silversmith wriggled closer to the bars that separated them and thrust his ankles in Mr Prossor's direction. He saw then that the other man was not bound at all; he reached unfettered arms through the bars to work on the ropes.

'He stopped worrying about me escaping days ago,' Oofy explained with a shrug. 'Too dim to do any harm, I suppose.'

'Well, I assure you, Mr Prossor, I am not at all dim. And I will free us from this place.' Silversmith considered that, had he been a lone captive, he may have given himself over entirely to an inevitable death, if only to keep the real Jeeves and Mr Wooster safe. However, now that another man was depending upon him for survival, he had a reason to continue onward. 'My wrists, if you would be so kind.'

Mr Prossor was just setting to work on the knots at his hands when Silversmith noticed it: a slight bend in one of the bars in Prossor's cage, just a few inches that widened the gap between the iron.

'Mr Prossor,' he said before the first knot was even undone, 'have you attempted to slip through that space yet?' He tipped his chin toward said space.

Oofy looked and wrinkled his nose. 'I certainly did. The first night that lunatic shoved me in here, I was itching to crawl through. But I couldn't manage it.'

Silversmith sized up the bars and then did the same to Oofy in what he hoped was a clinical manner. 'You might try again; if I am not mistaken, you have lost some considerable weight since the beginning of your captivity, if you will forgive my saying so. The human head, of course, is the problem. It cannot be squeezed or shoved as easily as an arm or leg. However, I believe you can fit, Mr Prossor.'

'Do you, by Jove?' Forgetting the ropes for a minute, Oofy stood and ambled over to his cage's bars, meekly cupping his nakedness in his hands. When he reached the gap, he stuck first one arm through the bars, then a leg. He shimmied his torso this way and that, squirming through the narrow space as best he could. Then, when he had no recourse, Oofy slid his head through the bars, only to grunt in frustration. 'I'll never get through, Silversmith, old boy. Even one of those Indian yogi johnnies couldn't manage it.'

'Allow me, sir.' With his hands still bound, Silversmith stood and walked towards the barred wall his cage shared with Oofy. 'I believe if I exert the proper pressure at the precise point—'

'Ah, like Sherlock Holmes and all that?'

'Yes. Indeed.' Silversmith pressed his shoulder into one of the bar's joint and set his bare feet as firmly as he could on the slick metal floor.

'Come on, then. Give it the business!' Oofy cried.

Silversmith gave. He pushed with all his might against the cold iron, puffing like a locomotive, and was gratified to feel the metal give the smallest of inches. 'Now, Mr Prossor,' he grunted.

Oofy wriggled his way back into the gap, shoving himself headlong into the breach, as it were. It took some doing, and the less said about the rawness of Oofy's ears, the better, but he soon popped free on the other side of the bars. Silversmith let up with a heavy gasp for air.

'Jolly good show, man!' Oofy cried.

'Thank you, sir. Now, if you would move quickly, before our captor returns—'

But it was too late. A door creaked open to reveal the whistling Giddlestone, and Oofy had no choice but to fling himself behind a nearby coat stand that held a few white smocks of the doctor sort. Silversmith, moving as fast as he could, knelt on the floor in a way that hid his unbound feet from the doctor.

'Ah, Mr Jeeves, I see you're awake and—' Giddlestone noticed Prossor's empty cage. 'Hrm. Not quite the smartest play you could've made, dear boy.' He stepped up to the bars, far from Oofy's hiding place. 'You'll have to tell me where the silly fop has gone now.'

'Run, Mr Prossor!' Silversmith shouted, and watched as Oofy made good his escape with the doctor in hot, albeit confused and bumbling, pursuit.

 

&lt;&gt;&lt;&gt;&lt;&gt;&lt;&gt;

 

I know it's rather unsporting, but I'm afraid this narration gag must once again swing away from the action to revisit some other chappies. You are begged to make the following sacrifices: please put Oofy Prossor and Silversmith from your minds and be secure in the knowledge that we will come back to them shortly. For now, go back to that park bench in Regent's Park, where Bertie Wooster and his man Jeeves are now slumped.

Well, Bertie was slumped. Jeeves was still as stalwart and upright as he always was, hovering somewhere in the offing while Bertie sat in defeat.

'Jeeves, please sit, would you? Surely even your feet must be in pain after all that walking about.'

'I assure you, sir, that my feet are no worse for wear.'

'Still.' Bertie patted the open space beside him. 'Sit next to me. Please.'

The valet did as bid and both men sat silently on the wooden seat, looking out across the cheerful park grounds.

'Where has he gone, Jeeves?' Bertie finally asked under his breath after some minutes had passed.

'I do not know, sir. We have visited all the likely places that my double may have sought refuge. I cannot imagine where else he might have decided to hide from us.'

Bertie gnawed on a worried lower lip. 'Is that what you think he's doing? Hiding, I mean? Not, well, not anything more harmful?' He looked over at Jeeves, his fear evident on his expressive face.

Jeeves did not lie, nor did he destroy his master's delicate hope. 'I cannot say, sir. We must continue to remain calm.'

'Calm, Jeeves? We've searched this city top to bottom and still have not come up with the goods. What should—? I say, Jeeves, what's the matter?'

The paragon of feudal spirit had gone from passively sitting on the park bench to kneeling on the muddy ground with his nose practically in the bally clover. 'Pardon me, sir, but I believe we have come across either a very strange coincidence or something of the utmost importance to our investigation.'

It was but the work of a moment for Bertie to throw himself beak-first into the clover as well. 'Tell me all, Jeeves! What do you see?'

'Do you see these footprints here in the dirt?' Jeeves traced the faint shape of a shoe with his fingertips.

Bertie nodded. 'What of it? Plenty of feet afoot.'

'These prints, sir, were made with a size 14 from Rothman's in King's Cross. Note the cobbler's mark.'

'Jeeves, I'm certain plenty of coves in London wear a size 14 from Rothman's.'

'Perhaps, sir. But very few men walk with their weight perfectly distributed from toe to heel. Do you see how this person stepped from the bench and proceeded to the gate with nary an ounce of extra pressure on any single part of the foot?' Jeeves pointed along the path that led through the grass.

'I say, a johnnie who walks like that must not make a peep, what?' Bertie pursed his lips in thought.

Jeeves coughed into his fist and waited.

'Oh!' Bertie cried. 'Jeeves! You walk in that fashion constantly!'

'Indeed, sir. I believe my instincts to seek a short respite in this park may have led us on the path that my doppelganger took upon leaving Berkeley Square.' Jeeves stood and dusted off the knees of his pinstriped trousers. 'You'll doubtlessly notice, sir, that he was not alone.'

Bertie peered at the tracks. 'Ah, yes. Some cove with tiny feet joined him. Who might you know with tiny feet, Jeeves?'

'One person in particular springs to mind, sir,' Jeeves said. 'Might I suggest, sir, that we visit the laboratory of Dr Giddlestone?'

'I thought you and your twin had paid that place a visit and found it lacking in doctors, Giddlestone or no,' Bertie pointed out with a frown.

'Regardless, sir. This is the only clue we have to follow.'

'Well.' Bertie sighed. 'Then follow it we shall. Lead on, Jeeves.'

And so it was several long blocks later that Bertie and his faithful shadow ran into Oofy Prossor, who was barefoot and clothed in nothing but a large white doctor's smock. Astute readers will see immediately how this came to be, but Bertram Wooster needed some additional background.

'I say, Oofy!' he hailed his friend.

'Bertie! Jeeves! You are Jeeves, aren't you? Oh, Bertie, it was awful. My God, that Giddlestone— I say, you don't have a cigarette I could pinch from you, do you? I've been without for a dashed long time.' Oofy wrapped his arms (normally thin to begin with, but now positively stick-like in Bertie's opinion) round his shivering frame.

'Mr Prossor,' Jeeves said as he removed his own morning coat and arranged it on the man's shoulders, 'I believe making you decent is the more pressing matter at present.'

'Says you,' Oofy shot back. 'You haven't been without a gasper for four weeks.'

'But Oofy, I just shared some of the Turkish with you the other week at the Drones!' Bertie protested.

'Perhaps you did, Bertie, but I swear to you it was not the real me.'

Bertie blinked as that sunk in.

'The laboratory,' Jeeves said sharply. 'I must go there immediately, sir.'

'Go back there? Are you mad?' Oofy shouted, drawing strange looks from passersby. 'That crazed doctor was chasing me up until a few moments ago. I daresay I narrowly escaped his clutches. Silversmith wasn't nearly so lucky.'

Both Bertie and Jeeves paused at that.

'Not Charlie Silversmith? Jeeves' uncle? What in the world is he doing there!?' Bertie asked.

'No, not Jeeves' uncle. Jeeves', erm, you know.' Oofy gestured vaguely. 'His double, I mean to say. That's what he's calling himself. Giddlestone's got him locked up, and the worst bit is, he thinks he's the real Jeeves.'

'Why's _that_ the worst bit?' Bertie needled.

'Because he's going to copy him again, and you can't copy a copy. Giddlestone's tried. Ghastly business.'

Jeeves coughed in a rushed sort of way. 'You have been exceedingly brave already, Mr Prossor. You needn't accompany me. Mr Wooster will escort you to Berkeley Square, where you might procure suitable clothes and sustenance.'

Jeeves began striding purposefully down the pavement, but Bertie caught him by the elbow. 'Now see here, Jeeves, you can't just leap into the lion's den all on your lonesome. I'm coming with you!'

'Sir, the danger—'

'Damn all danger!' Bertie said. He turned and grabbed Oofy by the wrist. 'Lead me to him.'

'But Jeeves said I didn't have to go,' Oofy whined.

'You'll lead us and like it; there's a good egg.' And with a little tug and a glare at a concerned-looking passerby, Bertram Wooster got his way.

 

&lt;&gt;&lt;&gt;&lt;&gt;&lt;&gt;

 

Now, leave that strange pavement conference in broad daylight and return to the secret room just off Dr Giddlestone's laboratory. Mere moments after Oofy Prossor legged it, the mad doctor had given up his chase; it was clear he was not going to win in a foot-race against the man. It would have been like a child's ball (for that was how he was shaped) trying to catch up to a jackrabbit.

Silversmith perceived this as the doctor returned to the secret room, puffing like a bellows and as red as a lobster.

'You!' he screeched when his eyes landed on Silversmith, still locked up in his cage. 'You let that wastrel loose! Do you have any idea what will happen now?'

'It is my hope that he returns with help so that I might be freed,' Silversmith said simply. 'I apologise, Doctor. Did you assume I would be content to remain here? Your use of knock-out drugs lends me to believe otherwise.'

'Oh, the tongue on you! I should cut it from your mouth right now,' Giddlestone hissed, and he snatched a rusty instrument from a table as if to do that very thing.

Silversmith took one step away from the bars, but did not flinch in any other way. 'I could not advise it. In order to copy me as you wish, you need me healthy, do you not?'

'No, I do not,' the doctor said mockingly. 'My machine copies the building blocks inside a man's cells and reconstructs them in their natural, perfected state. I could lop off an entire arm of yours, and as long as you were still alive, it would produce a sparkling, whole clone.'

'At any rate,' Silversmith interrupted, 'the authorities should be en route. You might consider dismantling any incriminating evidence and fleeing before their arrival.' He pulled fervently at the binding that still held his wrists behind his back, but to no avail.

'You'd like to see me flee, wouldn't you? No, Mr Jeeves, I have other plans. I don't know how much time is left before Prossor spits out his story, but I intend to make the most of it.' Brandishing the rusty scalpel, the doctor strode to the cage door and fumbled with the padlock. 'Now come out of there.'

'I do not think I will,' Silversmith said, now fully backed up against the far wall. 'I am not inclined to go anywhere with you.'

The rusty instrument was dropped to the floor with a clang in favour of the pistol that was drawn from the doctor's suit coat. 'You will do as directed. As I've said, I do not need you intact. A man can be shot many times, with much pain inflicted, while still remaining alive.'

Silversmith did step forward then, cautiously, careful to hold his head high like a Jeeves, to not appear overly concerned by his nakedness or the threat of physical harm. The longer he could convince this madman that he was Jeeves, he reasoned, the more time it gave Oofy Prossor to find help. When he was close enough to the open cage door, Giddlestone pulled him out, pushed him onward, and dug the tip of the gun barrel into his spine for good measure. As they walked through the dark room, Silversmith cleared his throat and asked, 'What occurred during my first visit here, Doctor, that disrupted your machine so violently?'

'Who knows,' Giddlestone muttered. 'I cloned Prossor with no trouble at all. Then I shove you inside and the whole thing blows to Heaven. It took me weeks to repair it. My own theory is that you're a more complicated creature than most; the machine probably couldn't handle it.'

'Why me, Doctor?' Silversmith asked as he stepped over some overturned cans of paint that littered the filthy floor. 'I'm merely a valet. Why are you so intent on cloning me?'

'Do you have any idea how much these idiot millionaires would pay for a specimen like you, Jeeves?' Giddlestone brayed to himself, a private joke. They climbed a small wooden staircase and Silversmith found himself blinking in the light of the relatively bright laboratory. Before him, the cloning machine stood with its door open like a gaping maw. 'I could make a dozen, no, a hundred of you! And they'd be snapped up with no trouble,'Giddlestone continued. 'A Jeeves for every man in England. Hell, in the world! What do you think of that?'

'I think you're an absolute nut-case,' said a beloved voice from behind them.

Silversmith turned to see Bertie standing there on the wooden stair, flanked by his twin and one strangely dressed Mr Prossor. He had never been so pleased to see anyone in his whole life (that is, if his Jeevesian memories could be counted as a life, which was a subject he was still struggling with). Unfortunately, Giddlestone turned to face them as well, aiming his gun the way that madmen do in situations like this.

An awful lot of things happened at once. Silversmith plowed his shoulder into the doctor's back to knock him off balance, Jeeves leapt forward to wrest the pistol from the man's hands, and Oofy Prossor grabbed a nearby candlestick holder and beaned Giddlestone over the melon with it. A satisfying THUNK echoed through the room, and the little fat man crumpled like so much tissue paper.

'Good show, Oofy,' Bertie said, rather disappointed that he hadn't had a chance to do anything so adventuresome.

'Thanks, Bertie. Can't say I haven't been waiting to do that,' Oofy said with a grin.

The doctor groaned from his place on the floor. Jeeves stepped forward to free his twin from the ropes wrapped round his wrists, and Bertie took the opportunity to at least deliver a very stern lecture, if he couldn't deliver a cracking blow.

'Giddlestone,' he said, 'trying to copy Jeeves a hundred times over is a work of madness. He's a special whatsit. If everyone in the country had a Jeeves, then it wouldn't be special at all, would it?'

Giddlestone muttered incoherently.

'A hundred Jeeveses would be fantastic for running Parliament, but a hundred Jeeveses running a hundred households filled with unsuitable employers? That's not what Jeeves was made for, and you're sorely mistaken if you think any Jeeves would stand for it.' Bertie perched his hands on his hips and nodded. 'Jeeves is one in a million. You'd do well to remember that.'

Silversmith attempted to conceal his burning shame at this statement. He turned his eyes toward the floor and fought the emotion that creased his brow. His twin placed a hand on his bare shoulder knowingly.

'Are you cold?' Jeeves asked him. 'Mr Prossor, would you kindly hand me the coat I gave you previously? Thank you.' And he wrapped it round the shivering frame of his doppelganger.

Bertie noticed this reaction belatedly, his smile slipping from his face as he looked up and caught sight of the two Jeeveses. 'Oh, erm, other Jeeves, of course you're one in a million as well. Please don't think I meant— Well, dash it.'

The copy remained silent, staring at the ground. Jeeves leaned closer to his ear to say, 'You are as much a Jeeves as I; you needn't take another name for yourself.'

'Mr Wooster was correct,' Silversmith said slowly. 'What Dr Giddlestone has done is unnatural; there should never have been more than one Jeeves in the world. I do not belong here.'

Bertie surged forward to clasp his hand. 'I don't like the sound of this rum talk, Jeeves!'

'Please, sir. I would be called Silversmith now,' he replied in a choked voice.

All three men looked up quickly as Oofy Prossor gave a hesitant sort of cough. 'I'll just, erm, drag this chappie Giddlestone downstairs, what? Make sure he's secure and all that. Ta.' And he made his less-than-graceful exit, dragging the doctor down the steps.

Bertie returned to the argument. 'All right, I'll call you anything you like. But you're still the man I love, for God's sake.' He brought a hand to the back of Silversmith's head and guided him down to share a long kiss. When it was over, Silversmith was blinking away what might have been a tear.

'I am not so sure of the situation's simplicity, sir,' he said quietly to Bertie.

Surprising the both of them, Jeeves grabbed his twin by the shoulders and also gifted him with a forceful kiss. Bertie watched his two paragons embrace for some time, contented by the sight. They parted so that Jeeves could gasp, 'If you love him half as much as I do, then you cannot possibly leave us. You know this to be true.'

Silversmith turned his solemn gaze on his young master, who still had his arm wrapped round him. 'Bertram,' he whispered, 'I believed you when you said your heart was big enough for two loves. If anyone could do such a thing, it is you. However, it is my own heart I find lacking. How can I intrude upon your love when—'

'No, it is no intrusion,' Jeeves protested at the same time Bertie said, 'You're wrong, dash it!'

Silversmith silenced them with a gesture. 'How can I intrude upon your love,' he repeated, 'when I know I would always feel, at the core of my being, the sting of being an outsider? I cannot burden you, either of you, with that.'

Jeeves held him tighter, burying his face where his twin's shoulder met his neck. Silversmith swallowed and held onto Jeeves' forearms, patting them in a small show of comfort. Their shared pain was enough to make Bertie weep. He clung to them as well, and their whispered declarations littered the air.

'Love you. Love you so.'

'I know, I know.'

'Please, oh Lord, please do not do this.'

'Would do anything for you.'

'Please?'

'Love you so much.'

Suddenly, unable to take much more, Bertie tore himself away. He took a few paces round the room, his thin arms hugging his torso. He walked all the way to the end of the laboratory. And then, he slowly looked up at Giddlestone's machine.

'So this is it then?' he asked. 'The thingummy that caused all this mischief?'

'Indeed, sir,' Jeeves said softly.

'I wish I'd—you'd— never laid eyes on it, Jeeves. Damn it to hell,' Silversmith swore.

Bertie ran a thoughtful hand over its wires and dials. 'I suppose it's a rather complicated contraption.'

'If I recall—'

'—The doctor only pressed one button.'

'This, you mean? The big green one labelled ENGAGE?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Precisely, sir.'

'Well.' Bertie cocked his head to the side. 'Well, well, well.'

Something in his voice must have alerted Jeeves and Silversmith, because it took only a moment for the two valets to run forward, shouting, 'No, sir! Don't!'

But for once, Bertie was quicker. He slapped the green button and jumped into the machine just before its jaws snapped shut. The thing whirred, then shook, then emitted a bright white light. Jeeves and Silversmith shielded their eyes, both trying to protect each other should the process result in another blast. But after a loud bang, the machine stopped shaking and the doors opened sedately.

Bertie Wooster stepped out, wobbling a bit on his feet. And behind him, naked as a jaybird and swaying even more, was yet another Bertie Wooster.

'What ho,' said the second Last of the Woosters. 'What's happened, then? It feels like I need one of your restoratives, Jeeves.' He shook his head as if to clear it of cobwebs. 'I'm seeing double.'

Jeeves caught the collapsing Bertie in his arms, and Silversmith was at the other Bertie's side in an instant.

'Sir, you've had quite an ordeal. Allow me, please.' He removed the morning coat from his shoulders and carefully swathed his cloned master in the voluminous garment. 'Are you all right, sir? Do you remember where we are?'

'I think— I think,' the new Bertie said with great effort, 'that I've just done something rather rash. Haven't I?'

'Yes,' said Jeeves, cradling his own Bertie, who had fainted dead away. 'Yes, sir, you have.'

'Do you still love me, old thing?' Bertie murmured sleepily against Silversmith's chest. 'I hope you're not cross.'

Silversmith locked eyes with Jeeves, and they both shared a raised eyebrow.

'Sir,' Silversmith brushed a lock of hair from his new master's brow, 'of course I love you dearly.'

'Topping,' said the cloned Bertie, and he drifted off into unconsciousness.

'Hullo, hullo, I've got Giddlestone all wrapped up for the police!' Oofy shouted in triumph as he trooped up the stairs. 'What say we head back to your flat and— Good Lord! This is the absolute limit! Two Woosters!?'

'So it would appear, Mr Prossor,' said Jeeves, hefting his Bertie in his arms.

'If you could find some clothing, Mr Prossor, I would be most grateful,' said the still-naked Silversmith, also shouldering his charge.

'Well, I still say it's the absolute limit,' Oofy muttered and stomped back downstairs to search for items sartorial.

 

&lt;&gt;&lt;&gt;&lt;&gt;&lt;&gt;

 

I say, you've all been very patient with this scene-changing business. I hope you're not tired of it yet, because here's a quick whatsit. An epilogue, I mean to say.

Bertie Wooster arrived home, swinging the whangee and doffing the hat as usual. And as usual, Jeeves floated over to greet him.

'A pleasant day for a walk, sir,' he noted.

'Yes it is, Jeeves. A most excellent day. Any letters?' The young master threw himself on the settee.

'One, sir, from our counterparts in Havana,' Jeeves informed him. He did that magic trick whereby a perfect b. and s. appeared at Bertie's elbow on a salver. 'Would you like me to read it aloud for you?'

'Yes, Jeeves, that would be topping.' Bertie took his drink and gulped a goodish bit while Jeeves plucked the letter from its place on the side-table.

'Dear self,' Jeeves read in his impressive letter-reading voice, 'What news of the homeland? It has been dashed warm here in Cuba, as Jeeves (the both of them, I mean to say) had warned me. It's not the most ideal place if one wishes to pal around with fellow Drones and play a game or two of darts, but what of it? My Jeeves is very happy here. You should see him in his shirtsleeves fishing on the beach. Well, I daresay you will when you and Your Jeeves come in two months' time. Oh, what fun we'll have while you're here. I'm looking forward to it in a rather hot-under-the-collar way, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't also looking forward to switching with you two. Doing my six months in Old Blighty will be a welcome change.

'Meanwhile, I am a veritable font of material, Other Bertram. This time spent without the distractions of home has given me ample opportunity to write. I would hazard a wager that, between the two of us, we might be able to produce upwards of a hundred published works. If only all writers were so lucky! While one of us collects the material for the one book, the other is busily scribbling away at another. Just corking, really. When I have a first draft completed, I do hope you'll look over it for me.

'I know you asked me in your last letter that I report on how My Jeeves is doing. I am happy to say that his initial gloom at being Not Quite Jeeves has almost completely passed. Once in a blue moon, he'll get quiet and very philosophical about his existence. It helps that I am here and can commiserate with him on these points, being a copy myself. I know Jeeves has cautioned me against sharing too much in these letters of ours, what with the law and all that, but I will say this: I find a few hours in the bedroom is enough to take the old thing's mind off of dark clouds. For any mail room workers who might be reading this: of course I am referring to a good afternoon nap.

'Well, it's nearing sunset and I promised Jeeves I'd accompany him on a jaunt on the sand. I will say this for Cuba: it's dashed beautiful. Enjoy your months of winter, Other Bertram! I look forward to hearing from you soon. Toodle pip, Bertram the Second.'

Jeeves placed the letter back in its envelope.

'Well, my double sounds just fine, Jeeves. Do you think he's just putting on a brave front? Havana's outskirts must be awfully dull at times.' Bertie asked, taking a concerned sip from his glass.

Jeeves gave a sheep-like cough. 'If I may be so bold, sir, I am certain that my own twin has a plethora of tactics with which to entertain his master.'

'Plenty of jolly good buggering, you mean?'

'I imagine so, sir.'

'Right-ho. I'm also looking forward to our appointed sojourn to the Caribbean, Jeeves. Do you remember the last time all four of us were together?' Bertie lit a cig. and looked up at the ceiling with a dreamy smile.

'Indeed, sir. The urgent need to procure a new bedstead after breaking the last one into pieces is not a memory to be easily forgotten.'

'Quite, Jeeves.' Bertie blew a lazy smoke ring. 'I suppose we should try something different next time, what?'

'If I may suggest, sir, my twin and I have been conducting our own correspondence on the matter.' Jeeves leaned over, ostensibly to place an ash tray beside Bertie's elbow, but he used the opportunity to whisper seductively into his master's ear: 'We would very much enjoy watching two Bertram Woosters locked in a passionate embrace, if you would be amenable.'

Bertie crushed out his gasper. 'Jeeves?'

'Sir?'

'I believe we shall retire for the afternoon.'

'Shall I turn down the bed, sir?'

'With great haste. And then you may turn to the young master.'

'Thank you, sir.' Jeeves dropped a kiss on his beloved's brow. 'Very good, sir.'

'Oh, and Jeeves?'

'Yes, sir?'

Bertie smiled with glowing happiness. 'Although there _is_ someone just like you, I hope you understand me when I say, well, there's no one like you, love of mine.'

Jeeves returned the smile with an almost-glimmer of his own. 'The same applies to you, sir.'

 

fin


End file.
